Category: Love Is Series

So let’s learn to love…

In conclusion to the “Love is…” series we come to the last part of the verse and it ends with a bang! Love never fails! How is that for assurance? There is not much in life that we can point to with the confidence that it can’t fail. But LOVE…NEVER….FAILS, and that is great news.

How often have we heard, “I don’t love you anymore” from the mouth of someone we know? Then I would argue that there never was love to begin with. Emotional attachment, yes, but not true love. Love never goes away. Love keeps on in the darkest hour. When you love someone you do not stop loving because they don’t measure up, or because they change, or because the “feelings” might temporarily be gone. Everyone one of us is tested in our love walk and many times it includes continuing to give when you aren’t being loved in return, True love is indeed eternal and never ends because it is a state of mind and not a fleeting moment of passion.

From the Strong’s Hebrew and Greek dictionaries we learn that the root for the word “fail’ means to drop away, specifically be driven out of one’s course, figuratively to lose, to become inefficient; be cast, fail, fall (away, off), take none effect. Now we can interpret the verse this way: Love will never drop away, it can never be driven out of your life, it can never lose its effects in our lives, it will never become inefficient, and it can never be cast out, fail, fall away, or be of no effect. The results of someone loving you will create a life giving source that keeps on giving! It will in time soften the hardest heart.

The good news is that, God is love and love never fails. God never fails. He will never leave us or forsake us because he is love. When we grow in God we can (and should) become that same steadfast assurance for others that proves the love of God, hence changes lives. It never, never, fails.

No More Lists: 1Co 13:4-8 (ISV) Love is always patient; love is always kind; love is never envious or arrogant with pride. Nor is she conceited, and she is never rude; she never thinks just of herself or ever gets annoyed. She never is resentful; is never glad with sin; she’s always glad to side with truth, and pleased that truth will win. She bears up under everything; believes the best in all; there is no limit to her hope, and never will she fall. Love never fails.

Who do you know that needs to see your love in action?

A Social Experiment Challenge

If we only hear words and do not apply them to our lives they produce nothing. I would like to propose everyone reading this love series participate with me in a 30 day love challenge. At the end of the 30 days send me the results that you recognize because of your actions. Here we go:

1. Love is patient – For three days concentrate on an area in your life that you need patience in and refuse to fret or attempt to force it.
2. Love is kind – For three days refuse to get in an argument with anyone over anything, rather do something good for that person.
3. Love does not envy – For three days practice supporting someone that has something you desire. Are yo happy for them? Do you feel yourself turning green? You’ll be amazed at what surfaces when you focus on “not” envying.
4. Love does not boast – For three days no not tell anyone about anything good you have done.
5. Love does not dishonor others – For three days refuse to speak ill of anyone no matter the offense or the crime. Post only uplifting comments to your social media pages. Refuse to oppose anyone in word, rather write something positive in response to those posts you just can’t resist commenting on.
6. Love is not self-seeking – For three days check your motive in everything you do.
7. Love does not keep account of wrongs – For three days let go of anything that anyone has done to harm you and strive to really forgive and release them.
8. Love always protects – For three days go to bat for someone that needs your support whether they have earned it or not.
9. Love trusts, hopes, and perseveres – For three days don’t give up on on thing that is bringing discouragement to you, rather press forward in a creative way.
10.Love never fails – For three days make one person that needs to see love in action a recipient of your love.

If you take on this challenge, please contact me and let me know how this affected your life,or the lives of those you interacted with.

That’s hard in our current world condition

Love Trusts

Love trusts in what? Do we trust that the sun will come up today? Do we trust that night will come? Do we trust the airplane pilot to safely get us to our destination, or the car we drive will perform as it should when we make a trip to the grocery store? These are all things that we take for granted because we have proved their reliability in times past. Like trusted friends or family members, it takes actual experience to prove and ultimately trust someone or something.

When we are children we are in the care of adults. How these adults interact with us determines our ability to trust them for certain things in life. Do they provide for us? Do they care for us? Do they protect us? As we grow in our relationship with them we get to know them and how they respond to our needs and desires. This can be for good or for evil. No matter, we trust their reliance based on past experiences.

So it is with life and with God. We have an initial experience with our Creator that lets us know he is real. Then we begin the lifetime trek of getting to know how reliable Spirit is in and with our lives. How many times have we heard a preacher say, “Just trust God”. That sounds pretty noble doesn’t it? And while the exhortation is genuine, we cannot fully trust God until we have proved him. Relationships take time to develop. That includes out relationship with the Divine. In time, if we persevere we will come to trust in the supreme being of the Universe, the One that created us and knows us inside and out.

So the next time you need to trust God in something, prove him. We are admonished to do this and he delights in the one that challenges his existence. Rom 12:2 And do not follow the customs of the present age, but be transformed by the entire renewal of your minds, so that you may learn by experience what God’s will is–that will which is good and beautiful and perfect (Weymouth New Testament).

When you decide that you have had
enough hustle and bustle of the world
around you…be still;
For it is in the Silence that you will
hear my voice…listen;
And when you get to know my voice
you will be able to obey me
and learn to walk with me…let’s walk awhile;
Then as you walk with me you will
learn to trust me for you will have
learned that I am faithful…trust me;
At this point, when you have learned
that you can trust me,
you will develop your faith in me
an now you are able to…love me.

Is there something in your life that you need to develop trust in or for?

Love Hopes

Many are waking up and experiencing real, tangible hope, with the understanding that the presence of the fullness of love is undeniably able to transform humanity. With that insight comes the realization that only love or lack of it can bring hope or hopelessness, life or death, to the world

Hope carries with it transformative power. Each year on December 31, the entire world does one of two things: either they stay up past their bedtime in order to usher in a new year, or they go to bed as usual without giving the annual event a second thought. Despite the repetitive nature of moving from one year to the next, there is still a sense of renewed hope that the next year holds something exciting, something fulfilling, and something rewarding. A deep glimmer of expectation sometimes moves us during that ten-second countdown out of the old and into the new—something that drives all of us, like shedding a snakeskin or becoming the butterfly that oozes out of its chrysalis. It’s that thing deep within us that causes us to move ahead and launches us into the unknown—that is, if we possess it. It’s called hope. With it we can move mountains, and without it we die still in the shell. We don’t even have faith without it, we can’t love without it, and we can’t really live without it.

Love Perseveres

When the sun comes up each day we are all at various places on a mountain. We are either struggling to make it to the top or carefully navigating the journey to the bottom. Either way, we cannot quit or we will die in the place where we stopped the journey. Persevering in life is much like climbing a mountain — we are either traveling upward or downward and both take great skill, courage, and the necessary supplies to safely maneuver the obstacles throughout the trip. Love perseveres in the face of the greatest obstacles.

Protecting Those we Love Takes on Many Faces

Most often when we think of protecting someone or something our first thoughts go to combat as in a military deploying troops to protect a country from an innumerable slate of potential advances. This is only one aspect of what it means to protect. To defend or guard from attack, invasion, loss, annoyance, insult, etc.; or to cover or shield from injury or danger. This obvious face of protecting those we love is too large a topic to address here. So let’s look at protecting those we love on a more personal level.

Remember that love begins in the heart and is expressed through action. A form of protection might be that of safeguarding one’s reputation. Would love seek to tarnish another in a way that causes emotional harm to them? What would be the reason(s) for such a drastic means of harming someone? More importantly what would be the ramifications to that person’s life as a result?
Social media has created a playground for those who have not developed the ability to protect others. Youth today are struggling to navigate America’s hyper sexualized culture along with the unbelievable difficulty that comes with just being a teenager. Sexting has become a normal part of the youth experience. If we receive a photo via text or social media that is less than dignified would love spread that image, even to their closest friend? No. Love would protect that person and love would seek to stop the chain of custody. So it is with any set of circumstances that we find ourselves in when it comes to having to make a choice about what to do about any given matter. We can either choose to continue the harm or stop it at its source and protect the innocent and / or vulnerable from being exploited further. The harm that comes to someone who has had their image spread on social media can be vast. Many youth have committed suicide over such a matter.

Adults struggle with similar onslaughts from those who would seek to harm them by circulating false information about them, especially on social media. We are given tools to defeat such harmful attacks. Remember that love covers. Love does good to those that hate them. Love does not fight back. Abraham Lincoln gave us a good example of winning this battle. He made it a personal policy to make his enemies his friends. This is not only protecting others from potentially devastating effects of slander and the like, but it protects the one dishing out such acts by showing them their own intrinsic value. That is the end goal of what love does to protect.

Ways to Protect Those We Love

Their character and reputation – Never spread rumors or engage in gossip even against someone you don’t know.

Their Well Being – Always encourage and find the positive attributes of others. We all have them.

Their Future – Refuse to rehearse (and repeat) an offense, rather protect the dignity of others.

Their Physical Body – Physical abusers were often abused physically. They prey on those weaker so they can conquer. Violence is rampant in today’s world and we must work to end it in the heart.

Love Does Not Delight in Evil but Rejoices With the Truth

In our advocacy work in human trafficking there have been many occasions to hear rejoicing at another’s fate. This always saddens. Love does not delight in human suffering. We should be sad at the loss of a life of any human being regardless of the reason for that loss, whether through an arrest, a court sentence, or a death.

Upon the execution of Karla Faye Tucker (TX) many years ago, the crowds that had gathered outside the prison rejoiced when they heard the news that she was pronounced dead. Now I realize this is an extreme example in order to show the reality of what “not delighting in evil” means but most likely most of us have heard these sentiments from others throughout our lifetimes, albeit in much lesser circumstances.

To “not delight in evil” means that we will not gloat over someone else’s guilt. How many of us rejoice when someone is found guilty of a crime or caught in a sin? This is not exemplary of love. Virtues of others, not their vices give us cause to rejoice. Missing the mark is an occasion for sorrow, not for joy.

Learning From the Elephant

We can learn much from our animal kingdom. “The newborn elephant is born into a community of love. Calves have more than one mother so to speak, as all are willing, eager teachers, from the matriarch, to her offspring and their young. They want to nurture, protect and help the youngest among them develop.” Click this link to read more from the source quoted here.

So throw away the record books

Don’t we all want a clean slate, or would we rather people keep a record of all the things we do wrong?

I think this is the most difficult of all the attributes of love to fulfill. Who among us wants to start the day with a negative balance in our bank account? Think about the stress that comes from being overdrawn, especially when there is no way to cover that balance in a timely manner. Everything that day is tarnished in light of the news that we are “overdrawn”. There’s not much that we can do to have a good day. Our attitude towards others, even those who had nothing to do with our predicament, is less than agreeable. A tiny offense from someone feels like a giant plank across the brow. In other words — we are not happy campers.

On the contrary when there is ample money in the bank and bills are paid we tend to be chipper and treat others with a bit more dignity and respect. Offenses don’t get under our skin nearly as much. We owe no man anything — our slate is clean.

So it is when dealing with life’s adversity. I like how the Weymouth New Testament translation puts it, “Love does not blaze out in passionate anger, nor brood over wrongs,…” (I Corinthians 13:5). Ouch. Who reading this woke up today with a less than happy thought about someone, whether way in the past or more recent? When we do this we are “keeping an account” of the wrong that has been done to us and we are not free. Our mental and emotional account is overdrawn. Like muddy water, our soul is not transparent. All that we do until we can add some mental and emotional energy into our account is tarnished.

How to clean off your list

Release – refuse to hold the offense against the person

Forgive – set him/her free from owing you anything (even an “I’m sorry)

Offer Grace – the same grace that is given us when we mess up

Extend Mercy – refuse to rehearse (and repeat) the offense, rather protect the dignity of the person

Reconcile – clear the air and embrace the offender as Christ has embraced us and wiped our slates clean.

Why do we keep account of others wrong doing?

For some reason it is very difficult for all of us to stand side by side with another, stripped of everything except who we are as individuals. When we remove the clothes, remove the houses, remove the diplomas and degrees, get rid of the bank accounts and so forth, we all stand face to face with nothing but a body, soul, and spirit. There is nothing about us that is different other than the color of our hair, eyes, and skin.

I personally believe that self-righteousness is at the root of our inability to not keep lists of others wrongs. And it seems that the greatest challenge in our walk with others is that of keeping the slate clean and the air that we breath open between those in our life circles. The cleaner we become, the more tendency there is to feel a bit better than the one that has not yet grown to the same place. Humility is the ingredient that we all need to keep a clear perspective when it comes to dealing with our human brothers and sisters. Yum yum — more humble pie please?

We are cleansed by the washing of the water of the word

Send us a water fall to wipe our slates clean. There’s nothing more refreshing than to find a nugget of truth that cleanses our soul when we have allowed it to get all muddy with daily interactions that challenge us to the limit. Remaining humble, agreeing with adversity quickly, and releasing tensions at the end of the day makes for a great night.

This one really needs some insight.

In most leadership and management training courses we learn to set goals in order to accomplish what we want to achieve. Goal setting is not necessarily utilized as a tool for one’s own purposes, rather it can be a vital tool in meeting business deadlines for short, intermediate, and long range expectations. When setting goals there are generally various steps created as a means of achieving the goal.

For example you might set a goal to lose 25 pounds so writing down the actions you will take to meet this goal is paramount. You will set an exercise regimen and a dietary change to establish what your new grocery list will look like. Some add a daily calorie intake level while others simply change the foods and quantities they will eat. By establishing mile markers necessary to attain the outcome you are looking for it will be easier to travel the road in the process of attainment. Working to achieve a healthier life is good. This type of goal while centered on a personal result is not selfish. You wouldn’t do this at the expense of harming anyone else.

Self-seeking is the seeking of one’s own interest or selfish ends. Being selfish is an attitude that has no concern for others in the quest of your goal. Your life and your goals are yours and you will attain what you want even at the expense of others. This is not healthy and it is not an attribute of love.

On the contrary, losing weight can be an attribute of love when it involves getting your body a bit healthier. You are signifying that you care for yourself so as to maintain a benefit to the life you were given.

Goal Setting Takes Others With You on the Journey

Everyone who has ever had a dream generally sees the end result of that dream. Even Jesus had a dream and he kept that dream before him as a means of traveling through life, especially when it came to the end of his life on earth as we know it. […] He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God’s throne (Hebrews 12:3 GNB). Having a goal gives us the fortitude to endure whatever comes our way in the midst of working to achieve that goal

What is the Root of Self-Seeking?

At the root of everything we do in life is motive, something that causes us to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc. Motives (intent or desire) can be for good and they can be for bad.
In criminal cases a prosecutor generally always looks for motive in order to present a case to the jury. If there is a motive involved (perhaps a large life insurance policy waiting at the end of one’s death) investigators can more easily connect the dots. If there is not–no reason to commit the crime–then a case can go in a different direction. While this is an extreme example, we can use it to examine our own purpose for the actions we take in life. We should always examine our motives for doing something before moving forward.

David had a Self-Seeking Motive for Killing Uriah

He wanted Bathsheba – In 2 Samuel 11 we read of a pure example of how wrong desire turned bad. David saw the beautiful Bathsheba and wanted her. He slept with her while her husband Uriah was away at war. Because of the indiscretion Bathsheba became pregnant. Then as a result of her pregnancy David devised a plan to have Uriah killed in battle. As a result of this one impure motive David lost favor with God and the plans that God had for him were changed. God wanted a man of peace to build his temple, not a man of war.

This is one of the best examples of how our motive not only affects our own future, but the future of others that we entangle with us. When the reality of what David had done was brought before him, he repented and was broken. And as a result he proved that he was a man after God’s own heart. Nevertheless his life was filled with turmoil from that day forward.